The present invention relates generally to ablation devices with acoustic or ultrasonic feedback and, more specifically, to a single ultrasonic transducer with an angular orientation for lesion feedback in an ablation catheter.
Current industry R&D in ultrasonic lesion feedback focuses on transducers that look out forwardly and sideways. This requires the use of dual transducers in an ablation instrument such as a catheter, resulting in a considerable expense and a significant loss of electrode tip metal for RF (radiofrequency) ablation or the like. Such an approach leads to an undesirably larger tip size to accommodate the two transducers or to poorer performing smaller (thinner) acoustic standoffs and/or backers for the dual transducers.